The fourth Essential Character Question determines a Main Character's problem-solving techniques to be linear or holistic.

Much of what we do as individuals is learned behavior. Yet, the basic operating system of the mind is cast biologically before birth as being more sensitive to space or time. Each of us has a sense of how things are arranged (space) and how things are going (time), but which one filters our thinking determines our Mental Sex as being Male or Female, respectively.

Male Mental Sex describes spatial thinkers who tend to use linear Problem solving as their method of choice. They set a specific Goal, determine the steps necessary to achieve that Goal, and then embark on the effort to carry out those steps.

Female Mental Sex describes temporal thinkers who tend to use holistic Problem solving as their method of choice. They get a sense of the way they want things to be, find out how things need to balance to bring about those changes, and then make adjustments to create that balance.

While life experience, conditioning, and personal choice can go a long way toward counterbalancing those sensitivities, underneath all our experience and training the tendency to see things chiefly in terms of space or time remains. In dealing with the psychology of Main Characters, it is essential to understand the foundation on which their experience rests.

How can we illustrate the Mental Sex of our Main Character? The following point-by-point comparison provides some clues:

 

Female: Looks at motivations

Male: Looks at purposes

Female: Tries to see connections

Male: Tries to gather evidence

Female: Sets up conditions

Male: Sets up requirements

Female: Determines the leverage points that can restore balance

Male: Breaks a job into steps

Female: Seeks fulfillment

Male: Seeks satisfaction

Female: Concentrates on "Why" and "When"

Male: Concentrates on "How" and "What"

Female: Puts the issues in context

Male: Argues the issues

Female: Tries to hold it all together

Male: Tries to pull it all together

In stories, more often than not, physical gender matches Mental Sex. Occasionally, however, gender and Mental Sex are cross-matched to create unusual and interesting characters. For example, Ripley in Alien and Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs are Male Mental Sex women. Tom Wingo in The Prince of Tides and Jack Ryan in The Hunt for Red October are Female Mental Sex men. In most episodes of The X Files, Scully (the female F.B.I. agent) is Male Mental Sex and Mulder (the male F.B.I. agent) is Female Mental Sex, which explains part of the series' unusual feel. Note that Mental Sex has nothing to do with a character's sexual preferences or tendency toward being masculine or feminine in mannerism --it simply deals with the character's problem-solving techniques.

Sometimes stereotypes are spread by what an audience expects to see, which filters the message and dilutes the truth. By placing a female psyche in a physically male character or a male psyche in a physically female character, preconceptions no longer prevent the message from being heard. On the downside, some audience members may have trouble relating to a Main Character whose problem-solving techniques do not match the physical expectations.

Examples of Main Character Mental Sex:

Female Mental Sex Characters: Laura Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie; Nora in A Doll's House; Tom Wingo in The Prince of Tides

Male Mental Sex Characters: Frank Galvin in The Verdict; Wilber in Charlotte's Web; Jake Gittes in Chinatown; Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs; Michael Corleone in The Godfather; Rick in Casablanca; Scrooge in A Christmas Carol; Hamlet in Hamlet; Chance Gardener in Being There; Job in the Bible